1. Field
A humanized and affinity-matured anti-c-Met antibody, a pharmaceutical composition comprising the antibody, and a method of preventing and/or treating a c-Met-related disease using the antibody, are provided.
2. Description of the Related Art
c-Met is a receptor for hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), which is a cytokine that binds the extracellular region of the c-Met receptor tyrosine kinase to induce cell division, movement, morphogenesis, and angiogenesis of various normal cells and tumor cells. c-Met is a representative receptor tyrosine kinase existing on the surface of cells, is itself a proto-oncogene, and is sometimes involved in various mechanisms related to cancer, such as cancer development, metastasis, migration, invasion, and angiogenesis, independent from its ligand, HGF. Thus, c-Met has been recently emerging as a new target for anti-cancer therapy.
In particular, c-Met is known to be involved in induction of resistance to commonly used anti-cancer drugs, and, thus, is regarded as important with respect to personalized treatments. Representative anti-cancer therapeutic drugs targeting epidermal growth factor receptor EGFR (ERBB1), i.e., Eribitux or Tarceva, work by blocking the signaling related to cancer development. In addition, Herceptin, which is well known as a breast cancer therapeutic drug, targets ERBB2 (HER2) and works by blocking the transduction of signals necessary for cell proliferation. Among patients resistant to the drugs described above, the signal transduction pathway that induces cell proliferation is not blocked due to the overexpression of c-Met. Thus, c-Met has emerged as a target of interest for many pharmaceutical companies.
Still, there is a desire for additional anti-c-Met antibodies and related methods and compositions.